ed arises, boy, and to the death."

CHAPTER FOUR.

MARK EDEN HAS A MORNING'S WALK.

Eden, fresh from Linkeham, on account of a terrible attack of fever
ravaging the school to such an extent that it was considered wise to
close it for a time, was enjoying the pleasant change, and wondering how
long it would be before the school would reopen, and whether his father,
Sir Edward Eden of Black Tor, would send him back.

"I ought to be old enough now to give up a schoolboy's life," he said to
himself, "and begin thinking of what I shall be as a man."

He said this to himself as he descended the stone steps which led to the
platform at the side of the precipice, where a natural Gothic arch hung
over the entrance to the mine, which began with a steep slope running
down through the limestone for fifty yards, and then opened out into an
extensive cavity, whose roof was a hundred feet overhead, and in whose
floor the square hole had been cut to follow the great vein of lead,
which spread like the roots of some gigantic tree in various directions.
The great hole represented the trunk of the tree, and this had once
been solid lead ore, but all had been laboriously cut away, as well as
many of the branches, which represented the roots, though plenty were
left to excavate, and fresh ones and new cavities were constantly being
formed, so that the Eden mine at Black Tor was looked upon as the
richest in the county.

Mark Eden stopped to have a chat with some of his father's men, who were
going and coming from the square trunk-hole, and he watched them
ascending and descending the greasy ladders fixed against the side, each
man bearing a candle, stuck in his leather cap.

"I shan't want to be a miner," he said, as he gazed down at the tiny
sparks of light below. "Faugh! how dark and dismal it looks. A dirty
hole. But father says dirty work brings clean money, and it's just as
well to be rich, I suppose. But what a life! Might just as well be a
mole."

He began to hum over an old English ditty, and his voice echoed
strangely from above.

"Let's see: Mary wants some of that blue spar, and I promised to get a
lot. Must go down one of these days with Dummy Rugg: he says he knows
of some fine bits. Not to-day, though."

He hurried out into the bright sunshine again, went up the steps to the
castle, which stood perched at the top of a huge mass of rock,
surrounded on all sides by the deep gorge, and then crossed the natu